


Things that never happened: Fall

by far_from_you



Category: The Prom - Sklar/Beguelin/Martin
Genre: F/F, One Shot, alyssagaypanics, songficish
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-21
Updated: 2019-06-21
Packaged: 2020-05-16 00:37:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,436
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19307089
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/far_from_you/pseuds/far_from_you
Summary: Alyssa just wants to talk to Emma. About books. That's all.





	Things that never happened: Fall

**Author's Note:**

> news of The Prom closing sent me into despair. i channeled all my sadness into this.

The school library was small and it wasn’t a quiet space. It was converted from some storage space, a janitor’s office and possibly a food science classroom. But it was a surprising hotspot for kids to congregate because the librarian, Mrs. Morgan, believed - and told everyone who would listen to her - in making the library “a place for everyone and for everyone a place”.

It was lunchtime and there were students in every imaginable spot a teenage body could fit. Ten of those bodies were squished inside a tiny conference room at the far end of the library.

The student council met in this cramped space every week, and every week it bored Alyssa to tears. But she made sure to be the first to show up so she could have her choice of seats.

The conference room had a large window that only made it feel a little less like the supplies closet it used to be. Also, it gave Mrs. M a clear line of sight to everything that went on in the room from her circulation desk station.

Alyssa always - always - sat at the corner of the rectangle table. From here she could look like she was paying attention to the meeting, and it also gave her a view out the window into the rest of the library.

It was fifteen mind-numbing minutes until Alyssa spotted the person she was waiting to see. Emma Nolan. She watched the bespectacled girl sidle through a cluster of work tables and the students seated there. No one noticed or even looked up. Alyssa’s eyes followed Emma as she walked past the window and slipped into the aisle at the far corner of the fiction section, right by the door to the conference room.

This made Alyssa inexplicably happy. She’d been observing Emma going to the same spot for weeks now. All those other times, when Alyssa walked out of the room she would notice Emma camped out by the last row of books, knees up and a book propped against them.

This time, Alyssa decided on a plan: she was going to talk to Emma today. And she had no idea what she was going to say. It was a great plan.

When the meeting ended Alyssa had to bat down her eagerness to leap out of her seat. Instead, she moved her notebook and pens around and checked her phone until the last student council member had left.

She paused at the doorway and willed herself to look confident. Casual, but confident. Alyssa turned to the aisle directly on her left and her foot landed right onto Emma’s backpack.

Alyssa hopped backwards in surprise. “Oh shit. I’m sorry!” She squeaked.

“No, I’m sorry.” Emma moved quickly to grab her bag from where it lay. “Got my stuff everywhere.”

Not expecting her to be right there, Alyssa had pictured herself wandering down the aisle pretending to browse before making conversation with Emma. Casual like. This was not in her plan.

A couple, long seconds ticked by as they both stood in silence. Well, her standing and Emma looking quite comfortable on the ground with a book in hand. Right, the plan.

“Is that good?”

Emma glanced down at the pages of her book and back up to Alyssa. “Yeah. I’m really liking it.”

“I need something to read over the long weekend. Maybe I’ll pick it up.”

They looked at each other for a moment before Emma went, “Oh!” She held the book up so Alyssa could see the cover and helpfully said, “ _Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe_.”

“Hang on, lemme just-” Alyssa reached for her phone, got down right next to Emma and snapped a photo of the cover. “Thanks,” she said.

“No problem,” said Emma, a little slowly.

Alyssa was putting her phone away as she caught Emma’s tone. She immediately looked up.

Alyssa would learn, very much later, that you could tell everything Emma was feeling by just looking at her face. Her perfect eyebrows would scrunch up in worry, her eyes widened and twinkled when something delighted her, her lips would purse into an adorable crooked smile when she couldn’t wait to share good news.

Emma doesn't play keep away with her feelings and Alyssa would love that about her.

But right now, Alyssa only felt deflated. They’d been in the same classes since middle school and Emma was probably judging Alyssa by the company she kept. While Alyssa never played a part in the bullying and teasing Emma endured for being gay, she also never really discouraged her friends either. Emma being wary was not an unreasonable response, Alyssa admitted to herself.

Alyssa swallowed hard and tried to convey some sincerity with her next words. She wanted Emma to see she wasn’t trying to trick her.

“I’ve been in a reading slump. Nothing’s really got me good recently. So...” Alyssa nodded at Emma’s book “I’m hoping this’ll break the curse.”

Emma still looked like she was waiting for the other shoe to fall, her eyes were darting to look behind Alyssa.

“Depends on what you like to read?” The caution in her voice only slightly diminished this time.

“I like everything,” Alyssa responded a little too eagerly. She tried again. “I mean, I like stories that, I don’t know, make me... feel, you know?” State debating junior champion, Alyssa Greene, wanted to hurl herself into the books return slot for that eloquent sentence.

Emma smiled at that while Alyssa burned hot with embarrassment for the remainder of the lunch period.

 

\---

 

The following week Alyssa was once again in her seat in the meeting room. She kept glancing out the window every so often.

She knew Emma was at school because she saw her by her locker, and then again in English. They didn’t make eye contact or said a word to each other all week. There wasn’t any reason to.

Alyssa did get a copy of the book Emma was reading and blew through it over the weekend. She cried through some of the chapters, finding herself overwhelmed by the empathy she felt for the characters. It was a quiet story of two boys discovering how much they mean to each other. So wrapped up was she in their story, she had not heard her mother call her to dinner.

When Mrs. Greene knocked on her bedroom door and walked in without waiting for a response Alyssa just about leaped off her bed. An unnameable fear made her want to instinctively hide the book, but doing that would only draw more attention to it. Thankfully, Mrs. Greene had not seemed to notice. She repeated her request that Alyssa got ready for dinner, turned and left.

Alyssa couldn’t wait to tell Emma how good the book was. If nothing else, she wanted to show Emma that she didn’t care what other people said about Emma, and that not everyone in school was a homophobic jerk.

Finally, in the distance there was Emma, wearing a military green jacket with those cool patches, dodging people and walking unhurriedly to the farthest corner of the library. Alyssa felt a pang of something strike inside her and happiness bubbled up, warm and soothing in her chest.

The meeting kept going. Alyssa had stopped paying attention. She would just read up on the minutes that was studiously being taken down by another junior member of the council.

Instead, in her head were all the lines she had rehearsed, things she wanted to tell Emma. And all the ways she wanted to say them so that Emma would like her. Like her? As a friend, of course. It _would_ be nice if they could start talking outside of their little library time.

When it was finally time to go Alyssa tossed her stuff into her backpack. She turned around and Alex Martin was standing there.

“Hey!” Alyssa said and cringed when she heard her voice climb. She hated that she always overcompensated for her irritation with super friendliness. And she hated even more that she could not stop herself from doing it. As though proving the point, she then smiled brightly at Alex.

Alex is a good person, a capable debate partner and mostly harmless. But right now, he was an obstacle.

Alyssa kept nodding and smiling as she slowly but surely nudged Alex out of the door and somehow managed to send him on his way, promising to meet for debate prep. Alyssa watched Alex exit the library and puffed out her cheeks, a small part of her already regretting that decision.

Emma was exactly where Alyssa expected her to be. Except this time she wasn’t reading. Emma was on the floor again, knees bent up so she could rest a stack of loose paper on them as she slowly scribbled. She had earphones on and her hand was tapping on her phone. Her blonde hair, short and always tousled, fell across her face as she hunched over whatever she was working on.

Perhaps she sensed Alyssa standing there because Emma looked up and her lips quirked into a smile. Alyssa felt herself grin in return. That warm bubble inside her from earlier grew slightly bigger.

Emma pulled away an earphone and looked at Alyssa but didn’t say anything.

“I loved that book!” Alyssa declared and sat down next to Emma. She then launched into a book report and finished off with, “So, can I get another?”

Emma let out a small laugh. Which set off fireworks inside Alyssa’s chest. Her heart swelled with pride, as though getting that laugh out of Emma was her prize.

The two girls looked at each other and then Emma’s gaze flicked up above Alyssa’s head, searching. She got on her knees to reach for something behind Alyssa, bringing her body dangerously close. So close Alyssa could feel the other girl’s body heat and smell the fresh laundry scent of Emma’s clothes.

Emma popped back down in front of Alyssa and handed her another book.

“I read this over the summer. It’s sorta sci fi- but like… _barely_ sci fi. Like, you won’t even really notice except for a major plot point.”

Emma continued to talk about the book, and Alyssa realized she was watching Emma do this with a face of someone watching a cute puppy dog. So she tried to make her expression a little more neutral.

This was the longest conversation they’ve ever had with each other. Alyssa thought Emma had the nicest voice. It was honest - her voice was honest. That was what she meant.

“Anyway, that’s just _my_ opinion,” Emma said, slapping her palms on her thighs for emphasis. “You might hate it.”

The warning bell sounded overhead as Alyssa was about to respond. Suddenly, her heart felt heavy, as if it was trying to weigh her down, to physically keep her there.

She looped a strap of her bag over a shoulder and said, “I won’t hate it. I’ll tell you what I think next week.” When she placed a reassuring hand on Emma’s knee their fingers accidentally grazed.

Alyssa, who had gotten used to and was really enjoying watching Emma’s expressions, was alarmed by the look on Emma’s face and quickly pulled her hand away. She rushed off to her next class without saying another word.

For the rest of the semester, the unofficial two-person book club was the highlight of Alyssa’s week. She didn’t want to assume but thought Emma might feel the same as well.

It was an unspoken understanding between them that they weren’t obligated to talk outside of this time. It was also unspoken that Alyssa would still try to be the last to leave the conference room so no one would see where she was headed to after.

 

\---

 

It was the week before Thanksgiving break and Alyssa was running around the auditorium for the fall talent show. The show was a major fundraising event and the entire Edgewater community was involved one way or another. She had to help out with student council business and her mother, who was recently elected and was the incoming president of the PTA, insisted that Alyssa pitch in with the PTA booth set up as well.

By the time the show started, Alyssa was exhausted and was only kept buoyant by her best friends, Shelby and Kaylee, sitting next to her.

They started scrolling on their phones to pass the time, having little interest in the show itself. But when the host announced the next act as “Emma Nolan” Alyssa’s head whipped up.

There was a smattering of applause as Emma walked to the center of the stage, where a mic and stool was placed for her. She had her guitar. It looked like a well-loved instrument. From where Alyssa sat she couldn’t tell what the stickers on the guitar said.

She had no idea Emma was performing. Of course, how could she? They never talked about anything other than the books they were reading.

Emma adjusted the strap to her guitar. Without fanfare, she strummed the opening notes and began to sing:

_Oh yea, I'll tell you something, I think you’ll understand._

Emma’s voice rang true and clear across the auditorium. Alyssa could never place a finger on why she always thought Emma’s voice was honest. Why she would pick that word. But now, listening to Emma sing, she knew exactly why.

_When I say that something, I wanna hold your hand._

Emma didn’t sing like she was doing a version of someone else. Emma was herself, she was unpretentious. Honest.

Emma looked straight out to the audience and delivered a heart-wrenching rendition of an upbeat song by slowing it down and singing acoustically.

_Oh, please, say to me, you'll let me be your man._

Alyssa watched, almost feeling mesmerized. And for the rest of the song everything else faded and she felt rather than heard the lyrics.

_I wanna hold your hand. I wanna hold your hand._

In Emma’s voice Alyssa clocked a longing that was all at once alien yet familiar. She felt that bubble of happiness inside of her the way it always comes when she was in their corner of the library.

But this time, that insistent and creeping fear, the one that made her want to hide a book from her mother, shrouded the bubble and pulled hard at her chest. She suddenly found it hard to breathe.

And as she sat there, trapped between her two friends, Alyssa knew with terrifying certainty that she could never meet Emma in the library again.

**Author's Note:**

> When I heard Mary Fletcher's cover of I Wanna Hold Your Hand I knew I wanted to write an f/f fic for it. Then I found a video of Caitlin Kinnunen singing it, and it was like the signs couldn't be clearer.


End file.
